Lori R. Bernstein – 26 January 2006

Carolin Lackner, Gerd Struber, Csilla Bankuti, Bernd Bauer, Rudolf E. Stauber – 26 January 2006

Fabrice Lainé, Claude Bendavid, Jeff Morcet, Michéle Perrin, Catherine Massart, Yves Deugnier – 26 January 2006

Keyur Patel, Suzanne Norris, Lauralynn Lebeck, Anne Feng, Michael Clare, Stephen Pianko, Bernard Portmann, Lawrence M. Blatt, James Koziol, Andrew Conrad, John G. McHutchison – 26 January 2006 – Patients infected with HIV‐1 who are heterozygous at HLA class I loci present greater variety of antigenic peptides to CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocytes, slowing progression to AIDS. A similar broad immune response in chronic hepatitis C (CHC) infection could result in greater hepatic injury.

Thierry Poynard, Mona Munteanu, Yen Ngo, Mercedes Torres, Yves Benhamou, Dominique Thabut, Vlad Ratziu – 26 January 2006

Kymberly D.S. Watt, Elizabeth R. Lyden, James M. Gulizia, Timothy M. McCashland – 28 December 2005 – Organ cold/warm ischemia is thought to be a risk factor for increased severity of recurrence of hepatitis C (HCV) post liver transplantation. We had noted some HCV patients with preservation injury (PI) to have particularly poor outcomes. Our goal was to determine if PI on biopsy in HCV patients is associated with earlier, more rapidly progressive recurrence or graft and patient survival.

Giampaolo Bianchi, Francesco Nicolino, Giorgia Passerini, Gian Luca Grazi, Paola Zappoli, Romina Graziani, Annalisa Berzigotti, Raffaela Chianese, Vilma Mantovani, Antonio Daniele Pinna, Marco Zoli – 28 December 2005 – Patients submitted to orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) show an increased rate of cardiovascular events. OLT subjects have high homocysteine (Hcy) levels, but no data are available on the association of Hcy with cardiovascular events. In a cross‐sectional analysis, 230 subjects were studied at least 6 months after OLT (159 on cyclosporine, 71 on tacrolimus).

I. Stelzmueller, M. Biebl, I. Graziadei, S. Wiesmayr, R. Margreiter, H. Bonatti – 28 December 2005

Thomas Zoepf, Evelyn J. Maldonado‐Lopez, Philip Hilgard, Massimo Malago, Christoph E. Broelsch, Ulrich Treichel, Guido Gerken – 28 December 2005 – Biliary strictures after liver transplantation are a therapeutic challenge for endoscopy. Anastomotic strictures occur in 10% of patients after liver transplantation, leading untreated to mortality and ultimately to graft failure. Despite of successful reports, to date, there is no defined endoscopic therapy regimen for these cases.

Teh‐Ia Huo, Han‐Chieh Lin, Jaw‐Ching Wu, Fa‐Yauh Lee, Ming‐Chih Hou, Pui‐Ching Lee, Full‐Young Chang, Shou‐Dong Lee – 28 December 2005 – The model for end‐stage liver disease (MELD) has a better predictive accuracy for survival than the Child‐Turcotte‐Pugh (CTP) system and has been the primary reference for organ allocation in liver transplantation. The CTP system, with a score range of 5–15, has a ceiling effect that may compromise its predictive power. In this study, we proposed a refined CTP scoring method and investigated its predictive ability.